


Sowing

by R00bs_Teacup



Series: Porthos and Aramis and the garden [2]
Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-28
Updated: 2017-04-28
Packaged: 2018-10-25 03:09:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10755501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/R00bs_Teacup/pseuds/R00bs_Teacup
Summary: Aramis asks Porthos to stay. But, things aren't always simple





	Sowing

Porthos’s favourite thing about Aramis has always been lying in bed with him, in nice clean cool sheets, in the mornings. This morning Aramis has the windows open and the sun’s just starting to get warm, Athos’s garden smells good and Porthos is enjoying thinking about the fruit Aramis has been telling him about. He’s also enjoying Aramis’s hand trailing over his arm and shoulder, idly tracing there, and Aramis’s breath against his forehead, and Aramis’s legs tangled with his, and Aramis and Aramis, Aramis. Porthos makes a long drawn out sound and stretches, presses closer, smiling when Aramis takes this as an invitation to wrap an arm around him and kiss his hair and his eyelids. He’s still half asleep, and listening to Aramis while half asleep is a luxury he hasn’t been permitted in a long time. The past few (few, very few) times Aramis has visited home he’s been up and jittery long before Porthos wakes. The one time Porthos came down here they stayed in a hotel in town, miles away from here, and Aramis had left late and come back in the morning. Now he’s here. Porthos burrows close and listens to his quiet murmured contemplation about breakfast.

“Are you awake, yet, baby?” Aramis asks, after a while, warm with amusement. The familiarity and joy of it curls through Porthos and he wriggles in closer still. “Hedonist.”

Porthos butts his head against Aramis’s shoulder and Aramis laughs, but wraps Porthos in closer and lets him drowse on. Porthos listens the murmurs again, drifting, clinging to the warmth and safety and security of just being here in this moment with Aramis. The duvet’s fallen mostly off and there’s a breeze over his skin, but he’s warm enough and as the sun comes up it’s like fingers warming him, like Aramis is bringing the sun. Aramis and the sun both fingering and tingling over Porthos’s skin. Porthos hums and Aramis hums back, chest rumbling, definitely still amused. Then goes back to talking. The words intrude again, going from a murmur to insistence, demanding Porthos pay attention.

“You could just stay,” Aramis whispers, voice drowsy, trailing the backs of his fingers down over Porthos’s shoulder and back.

Porthos stiffens, all his muscles clenching.

“What?” he says, loud in the intimate quiet they’ve established, and too harsh.

“You could stay here, Athos wouldn’t mind,” Aramis says, also less blurry, sitting up.

“You’re serious,” Porthos says, rolling off the bed and pacing to the window, holding tight to the window sill. “You want me to stay. To live here.”

“Yeah,” Aramis says.

“Don’t sound so bloody scared and vulnerable,” Porthos mutters.

The morning drowse is completely dispersed now, his pleasure at being close to Aramis violently dispelled by a raging, boiling anger that feels like it’s eating up his stomach. He takes deep breaths and looks out at the garden, hoping Aramis keeps his mouth shut for five minutes so Porthos can calm down. He focusses on charting what’s in the garden.

“You’re upset,” Aramis says.

He’s sitting with his head bowed, playing with the duvet, Porthos knows without looking. It’s an affectation. Not that Aramis is ungenuine about his uncertainty, but he’s got these stock behaviours that are unintentionally manipulative, aimed at getting something he wants. Porthos doesn’t look. He breathes deeply, and ignores the frustrating note of counterfeit fear in Aramis’s voice. He is not afraid of Porthos leaving, but that’s the fear that weedles through when Porthos is angry anyway. A knee-jerk reaction that Aramis can’t control. Porthos knows he can’t control it. Doesn’t help much, sometimes.

“For fuck’s sake,” Porthos snaps, deep breathing not working. “Upset? I’m livid.”

“Uh, yeah, got that,” Aramis says, much more himself, fear gone. “Because I want to be with you?”

“If you want that, come home,” Porthos says, too short, too sharp. “I know you decided to have your big freak out down here in the middle of nowhere and as such have been living in your head for a really long time now, but you must know my living down here is a stupid thing to suggest.”

“Why?” Aramis asks. “I can’t come home yet, I need -”

“Yeah well what I need is access to the Gender Clinic, and my doctors, and the trans friendly barbers and clothes shops that I’ve found through painful trial and error, my GP surgery where they don’t question my T perscription. My friends, my support group. My job. I kind of like living in a place where I’m not isolated and where I have access to…” Porthos trails off. “You know, me things. Not Aramis things. My work. That I love, by the way, remember that? My job?”

“Of course I remember,” Aramis says.

“Yeah. What are you asking me, anyway? Are you serious? Because if you’re serious you’ll be able to tell me what support there is here, what job opportunities, what the trains are like for my friends to visit, what it’ll be like for us if we go out here, because Hereford is hardly known as LGBT friendly. And the police, what about that? What’ll it be like here, if I get tipsy will they lock me up?” Porthos stops and breathes. “Because this sounds like a whim. A selfish whim.”

Aramis is silent. Porthos feels tears sting his eyes and he rubs at his face. His eyes are still gritty with sleep.

“I grew up in a place like this,” Porthos says. “I’m not coming back. It was hard enough the first time around. You’re being so incredibly unfair, Aramis. I grew up with countryside and gardens and this, and I loved it. I wish I could live in the middle of God-damned nowhere. It must be nice to have places like this to retreat to, for this to be peaceful and safe. It’s a privilege I would pay a lot for.”

“I didn’t think,” Aramis says.

“Yeah I got that. I want to stay. I want you. I know you need to be here and I don’t want you to feel bad about… well actually right this second I would love for you to feel terrible, misery loves company. In general though I am glad that you have this space and have found some peace,” Porthos says, and as he says it he finds himself able to make peace with it again and put his own issues and baggage aside again. He takes a deep breath and this time it helps. “I wish I could stay here and do nothing, and just curl up with you, and it be us and this intimacy and quiet.”

“You’d get bored and miserable,” Aramis says, sounding rueful.

“Yeah. Probably. I need affirmation, as well. More than you can give me. People who tell me I look great, who get my pronouns right, who know stuff and understand. I need that.”

“I shouldn’t have asked. I miss you too,” Aramis says. “I miss you a lot.”

“Yeah,” Porthos says, going to sit on the edge of the bed.

Aramis moves behind him, spreading his thighs so Porthos is between them, stomach and chest against Porthos’s back, arms around him but loose, hands resting on Porthos’s thigh and lightly against his bare stomach. Porthos leans into him and shuts his eyes, letting his head tip against Aramis’s shoulder. He lets some of the tears escape and Aramis tuts and hums, kissing the skin near.

“I love you. I’m sorry I hurt you,” Aramis says. “You’re right, that was selfish of me.”

“Yes,” Porthos agrees. “But it’s good to know you want this to work, me and you. Still want me around.”

“Of course. Always. It’s hard to say, because it makes such a demand of you,” Aramis says. “To ask you to wait, to just keep that space for me, empty. That’s a big ask.”

“Yep,” Porthos agrees, smiling. “You’re better now, though. You’ll get there. Then come home. Geronimo misses you.”

“Have you been exiled from the house yet?”

“I can beat a cat in a fight,” Porthos says. Keeping to himself that he’s slept on the sofa a time or two because Geronimo has been on their bed and has a death glare and sharp claws. And that he’s slept at Charon and Flea and Elodie’s place twice. That was because of loneliness, not because the cat was cross with him. “You better come back and appease the monster.”

“Geronimo is just sensitive,” Aramis says. “I miss her, too. Mostly you though. How are Charon and Flea? Elodie?”

“I did not run away from the cat.”

“Mm hmm. Ok. How were they, when you didn’t-run-away there?” Aramis says.

Porthos tells him, tentatively, about their friends and their flat and the cat. Aramis hasn’t really wanted to know. He listens attentively though and asks questions, so Porthos tells him.

“And work?” Aramis asks.

“Is good. I put in for a couple of grants, last week. We’re doing ok, chugging along. We got funding to hire another therapist, so I’m interviewing psychologists next week. It’ll be good to have another person who can do diagnoses, it’ll shorten the wait list. Got a couple new vets coming regularly, which is good, the more the service is used and all that,” Porthos says. He helps co-ordinate and run a Veteran project, which provides a centre and various services out of a church hall. He job shares with Charon and spends the other half of his week doing contracting work, which pays the bills.

“I love you,” Aramis says. “I’m so, so sorry I haven’t been interested or involved recently. I have been selfish.”

“Is that one going round and round?” Porthos asks, gently, reaching back to rest his fingers against Aramis’s temple. “Sorry sweetheart. You aren’t selfish. I didn’t mean that, just the whim to invite me to stay was, is what I meant. And now I’m not angry I can think of it as generous instead. Stupid, but generous. To want to share all this with me, all this that you love. You love it here, right?”

“Yeah,” Aramis says. “I wish I could stay. Could live here.”

“You do?”

“Yes. Sorry.”

“No. Wanting things is good, and telling me what you want is good,” Porthos says. “Maybe it’s something we can think about.”

“But all those things you said, they’re true,” Aramis says.

“Yeah, but what I need will change in the future, and there are other way to access support and that. Hereford is on a good train line to London, and I could even think about getting a driving licence or starting cycling long distances again. There are things to think about, maybe we can work around stuff. I’m not saying yay let’s move to the racist homophobic transphobic countryside near the city with zero resources and support, but yeah, we can think about moving out of London sometime in the future.”

“I’ll miss Athos, when I come home.”

  
“We can visit, you can spend weekends here. If you go back to work after your sabbatical our combined income can cover rent here, Athos doesn’t exactly charge much.”

Aramis is quiet for a while, kissing over Porthos’s shoulders, wriggling closer. Porthos is happy to relax, now. Happy to let Aramis ease him back into a pliant, hedonistic mood. He’s getting hungry and he wants a shower, but both can wait for a bit. For this, practicality can wait a while. He needs this, needs Aramis close.

“I do need something,” Porthos says.

“Mm?”

“You mightn’t like it, it’s a selfish thing,” Porthos says.

“Can’t get angry and glare at the garden if you don’t ask,” Aramis says. “Did you count the trees?”

“Shut up. I need to see you more,” Porthos says. “I need to.”

“You can come visit. And I should start visiting home again, if I’m ever going to go back. Which I am,” Aramis adds the last quickly, then remembers that him never returning is his fear, not Porthos’s, and snorts. “Right.”

“I want to make a commitment,” Porthos says. “Both of us. Something solid.”

“Like?”

“Twice a month,” Porthos says.

“This isn’t a whim. No, of course not. That’s why you were angry, maybe? A little? You’ve thought this through, and how it might work for me, and worried about me. Thought about what you need and how we can see each other more, and there I go, being thoughtless.”

“Shush. When I shower you should do something about those negative thoughts.”

“I can do that.”

“Twice a month,” Porthos repeats. “Two weekends out of four. However that goes, one here one there, once a fortnight, two in a row, always here, I don’t mind. I don’t mind if you need to cancel, or if you just come up for a day, or if we meet halfway for just a day. But commit to seeing each other twice a month, and plan for it to be two weekends out of four.”

“I can do that,” Aramis says.

Porthos lies back down with a sigh, tangling them together again. Aramis goes back to gentle trailing fingers and soft kisses, and humming and murmuring, and Porthos relaxes again. They stay like that, lying in a deep pool of sunshine as the morning heats up to the promise of another hot summer’s day, Aramis talking yearningly about driving to the river for a swim later. They stay like that, tangled together, hands knitted, holding each other. They stay like that, until Aramis gets a bit fidgety with negative thoughts. Then Porthos kisses him warmly and tells him he’s wonderful and loved before going to shower and leaving Aramis to do his techniques.


End file.
